Cordoba Mosque near ground zero you have a task

7. Q - Do you concede there are genuine, valid concerns about this project which are not derived from Islamophobia or racism? What do you think those concerns are and how would you respond to them?

A - In a recent poll, even New Yorkers with a favorable opinion of Islam had reservations about the project. People have real questions and we need to work hard to make sure we get them answers, and that's not going to happen overnight. We're going to make sure our fundraising and planning involves people from across the city and we're going to make sure we do so in a way that hears concerns and responds to them.

Unfortunately, the public meetings we had with Community Board 1 and the Landmarks Committee were overtaken by a minority who prevented people from expressing their real concerns. The meetings turned into public spectacles. We're now looking for ways to engage our fellow New Yorkers and fellow Americans and have extended an open invitation to anyone concerned to come visit our space. They'll see we have a warm community that reflects the diversity of this country, and they'll see that we want to build Park51 so it has something for everyone.

I can't say this often enough. We work in lower Manhattan, we care about lower Manhattan and we're here to provide services to lower Manhattan.

The problem with this is that El-Gamal and Rauf and Daisy Khan and all their allies have consistently demonized all the opposition to the mega-mosque. There is nothing "Islamophobic" (a manipulative, trumped-up word in any case) or "racist" about pointing out that throughout history Muslims have built triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered peoples, or that Rauf has not been honest, or that the mosque would be an insult to the people killed by Islamic supremacists on 9/11. I have seen people at Community Board meetings and elsewhere painstakingly and cogently explain why their opposition to the mega-mosque had nothing whatsoever to do with "bigotry" or "intolerance," only to be rudely ignored and again vilified as bigots by mosque proponents.

8. Q - How do you respond to a recent Quinnipiac poll [4] showing a majority (52%) of New Yorkers actively oppose the project? What would you say to the 17% undecided New Yorkers to try and persuade them?

A - The same poll shows that a majority of Manhattan is behind us. Community Board 1 is overwhelmingly behind us, and they represent the people of lower Manhattan who are closest to Park51 and would be most relevant to our vision. They are the people of lower Manhattan. They've studied our project closely, they learned about who we are and they live in the area we hope to serve. They were clear in their support for us, and we're tremendously grateful for that.

The Board recognized the value in jobs, programs and services we are bringing to the city, and they know that this project is very important for lower Manhattan. That's a major reason why Borough President Scott Stringer, Mayor Bloomberg, Councilwoman Chin and Councilman Jackson, City Comptroller Liu, Attorney General Cuomo, State Senator Squadron, U.S. Congressman Nadler, Governor Paterson a number of key officials and institutions are supporting us. We're also pleased to have the support of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. These leaders and organizations know Imam Feisal has served Lower Manhattan for a long time, and that he has been a positive force in this city and country.

But we need to do more to reach out to the undecided New Yorkers, the New Yorkers who have only heard misrepresentations about Park51, and other Americans in other parts of our country. I think that as more information comes out about the project, and more people learn about who we are and how we want to help New York City, we'll see these numbers change.

I want people in New York who are undecided to know we're a part of this city, and we want to make it a better place to live and work. We want to help stimulate our economy, and enhance New York's position as a global hub of ideas and culture.

Then address our real concerns, instead of setting up straw men and engaging in the basest forms of character assassination.

9. Q - How do you make the case for supporting Park 51 to the local Muslim American community? Doesn't Park 51 undermine support for (and even actively harm) more pragmatic mosque projects in Sheepshead Bay and Staten Island?

A - We're not affiliated with either of those projects, but we do recognize that this project affects people from all over the world. New York City is the capital city of the world. I'm pretty sure New York City also has the largest Muslim population of any city in the United States. Muslim New Yorkers need to do more to become part of the institutions and organizations that serve and contribute to this city. We believe Park51 will be a positive step in this direction.

I believe that our model represents the best of American and Muslim values. More people need to know the truth about Islam, and that's that Islam is a peaceful religion, a compassionate religion, which

preaches service to all. Unfortunately, there is some opposition to Muslim projects which is driven by hate and negativity, and we should be concerned by this.

Because hate for one minority can become hate for anyone who's different, and New Yorkers, like Americans, understand the value of diversity and the importance of protecting difference. That's what makes America so dynamic and so unique.

Here again, opposition to the mosque has nothing to do with "hate." No one would ever take the time to "hate" Muslims or think about them at all were it not for the ongoing threat of jihad terrorism and the increasing arrogance and demands of the Muslim community in the U.S. And the mega-mosque is just another example of it.

10. Q The controversy has alienated many Americans and New Yorkers who are tolerant of Islam per se but viscerally react to the project with offense. In hindsight, what could you have done differently to avoid this reaction?

A - My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones. We were all attacked that day, no matter what our color or our religion. I understand that people are offended, but we cannot lose sight of why we are doing this. And we cannot forget that we are a part of this city, a major part of this city, and we need to work together as Americans and as New Yorkers.

Moving forward, I hope and pray the dialogue reaches more New Yorkers and Americans. People have concerns and questions, and we want to answer them in a meaningful way, in a way that lets people know who we really are, what we want to do for the city and how they can be a part of Park51.

We have to appeal to the undecided, and change the conversation about Muslims in America. Because of that, we're offering an open door. You know, I'd love it if Sarah Palin came to Park51 to see our community.

She'd see that we're just as American as she is. She'd get the chance to meet some of her fellow citizens who happen to be Muslims. Consider that an open invitation, Mrs. Palin. We'd love to see you. We want to welcome everybody who cares about this city and about this country.

Fine, let's dialogue. Let's continue this discussion. I've raised what I believe to be legitimate concerns here. I invite Sharif El-Gamal to respond, and we will have a dialogue. I'm ready when he is.

Posted by Robert on July 29, 2010 6:24 PM | 36 Comments
Categories Islamic supremacism

mosques

Hugh | July 29, 2010 6:37 PM |

"I want people in New York who are undecided to know we're a part of this city..." -- Sharif Al-Gamal

Georgie

Anne Geyer, known for decades for her anti-Israel and pro-Arab views, has come out with an article on the New York mosque that is not, as one might have expected it would be, a defense of the Ground Zero mosque as an inoffensive and innocent "free exercise of religion," but, she rightly senses, a depiction of the mosque as something more suspect and more worrisome.

She shows en passant that she continues to believe, or at least pays lip service to, the myth of Cordoba, that is, the myth of an Islamic Spain where Christians and Jews lived under benign Muslim overlords, a splendid example of "Convivencia" - and one presumably with implications for the brave-new-world we are allowing to be created, if we do nothing to halt it, in Western Europe.

But is this "convivencia" stuff true? Was Montgomery Watt, the Anglican clergyman who was, as his former student Ibn Warraq testifies, philo-Islamic because he had a horror mainly of atheism, correct in his depiction of Islamic Spain? And what about Maria Rosa Menocal, with her Ornament of the World? You can read about her at this site. Was Cordoba, was Islamic Spain itself, a place where "Muslims, Christians, and Jews" all lived in splendid harmony? Apparently the Christians didn't feel so, because otherwise why would they have spent 500 years in attempting to throw back the Muslim invaders? And what about the Jews, who had no army? Well, consider the most famous of those Jews -- there is a statute of him, by the way, in Cordoba, in the Juderia. What did Maimonides think of Cordoba, where he lived, as a place where under Muslim rule Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in "harmony"? In his "Epistle to Yemen," Maimonides described his experience. The Jews were treated so well? If so, why did Maimonides denounce the hideous treatment of Jews by Muslims in Spain, and why did Christians tirelessly engage in the Reconquista over 500 years?

But other than that conventional unwisdom about Cordoba, Georgie Ann Geyer appears to have come, at least somewhat, to her senses. It will be interesting to see if she can ever drop her anti-Israel animus. She was offended, and rightly, by the display of arrogance and contempt for the feelings of non-Muslims, demonstrated by the not-quite-as-suave-as-necessary Muslim spokesman who appeared on television to attack those who question the motives, the funding, the goals, the everything, of those behind the Ground-Zero Mosque:
One organization is the Cordoba Initiative, which has a good reputation as an Islamic group that wants to meet with Christians in an atmosphere reminiscent of an Islamic "Y." (It is named after the liberal Islamic caliphate in Cordoba, Spain, ruling from the eighth to the 15th centuries, which respected Christians and Jews -- a good sign.)

But no one has revealed where the $100 million for the mosque has come from, who is behind the idea, or who are the people leading the entire project. [...]

The so-named "spokesman" and "founder" for the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, interviewed on CNN, was far from courteously trying to convince other Americans of his group's good intentions. He was arrogant, smug and derisive of non-Muslim Americans. One came away from his interview feeling that he really wanted to, as the kids rather eloquently say, stick it to us.

Given these chasms of information -- and the attitude of the Muslims involved -- one can only be against this Ground Zero Mosque. The unequivocal fact is that the grounds where so many died so terribly is no place at this moment of history for any mosque....

And she ends her piece thus:

And here's perhaps the most important point. If the planners of this mosque, like the arrogant one on CNN, really consider themselves Americans, they would not bring up such an aberrant idea at such an

emotional time, when the United States is fighting two wars against radical Islam, and when American Muslims remain a largely unknown quantity.

Last weekend, for instance, a conference of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was scheduled to be held at the Dulles Expo Center near the capital, in Virginia, with 5,000 set to attend. The theme was: "Are Muslims required to obey non-Muslim governments?" The radical Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA) was also scheduled to hold a conference in Chicago earlier this month to hype the idea of spreading an Islamic state to the entire world, but it was suddenly canceled by the Marriott Oak Brook hotel for reasons unknown.

That these questions could even be asked among people who have taken citizenship oaths to defend the United States, and who enjoy all the benefits of this country, tells you that we must carefully observe the players to be sure we are playing with the same rules.

Keep in mind that there are few Christian churches, much less Jewish synagogues or other religious temples, anywhere in the Islamic world. Until Muslims are willing to provide for others, in countries where they are dominant, what they so arrogantly demand for themselves in the West, it would be the height of folly to allow such a dramatic and intrusive development as the Ground Zero Mosque.
But this note of "no one can say us nay" and "we are here to stay" and "we'll do what we want- if not right now, then soon enough, when our numbers and our power increase," is a theme that Muslims have been sounding for a long time, and quite deliberately. It is only recently that Infidels have noticed this theme, thanks to the Muslims' behavior toward non-Muslims all over the world. This behavior includes the many reported acts (and just how many similar acts do you think are never reported, that we never hear about?) of persecution and humiliation, and attacks on, and even murders of, non-Muslims in lands ruled by Muslims. It also includes the demands, each more outrageous than the next, for changes in the ways of life, in the laws and customs, of non-Muslim peoples and lands, into which - in a fit of nearly criminal negligence, Muslims in large numbers have been admitted and allowed to settle, by those who simply relied on pious assumptions about Islam. They had no real knowledge or understanding of either the ideology of the Total Belief-System of Islam, or of the goals of Jihad. It is only just now that many are prepared to listen carefully, and no longer to overlook such statements, and to begin to grasp how such attitudes arise naturally from the texts and tenets of Islam.
Take that Muslim "scholar" Tariq Ramadan. He is, in truth - see Frere Tariq by Caroline Fourest, which is now available in English -- a sly propagandist for Islam. He has had a chair specially endowed for him at Oxford by Arabs spending some of their oil-and-gas revenues. Oxford has done this to its shame and, one hopes, to its great and permanent dismay, once potential contributors, non-Arab and non-Muslim, find out about this bought-and-paid-for well-upholstered chair supplied to Tariq Ramadan. Listen closely to Tariq Ramadan. One of the things he keeps saying is the phrase: "It's over." Yes, he repeats it too: "It's over. It's over." What does he mean when he says that to opponents? He means that we Muslims are here, and what's more, there is nothing you can do about it, so don't even try to stop us in any way, and don't even think about halting our arrival, or dislodging us, or taking away the benefits we exploit or refusing to meet the demands that we make: "It's over. It's over."
This is a rhetorical weapon, the weapon of the triumphalist bully, attempting to demoralize Europeans into throwing up their hands in despair, and not being able to summon the will to halt Muslim immigration and then even to reverse it, through a series of intelligent, carefully-crafted, and perfectly-justified measures. No other group of immigrants poses anything like the implacable and permanent danger that Muslim immigrants so clearly pose to the political and legal institutions, the art, science, literature, freedoms, of the advanced West. That large-scale Muslim presence has created a situation for the indigenous non-Muslims (and for other, but non-Muslim, immigrants) that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without such a large-scale Muslim presence. No one should hearken to, though we all should listen to, the implied threats and menace underneath soft-spoken, but deeply sinister Tariq Ramadan with his "It's over. It's over."
One year ago, the city was buzzing when the newspapers published a letter by Bouchra Ismaili, a Rotterdam city councilman: "Listen up, crazy freaks, we're here to stay. You're the foreigners here, with Allah on my side I'm not afraid of anything. Take my advice: convert to Islam, and you will find peace."

It is not over. It is just now that people are educating themselves and waking up. Tariq Ramadan does not want that to even be considered as a possibility. He wants - and many other Muslims want - us to believe in historical inevitability, and in the inevitability of their triumph. This is exactly what Hitler and the Nazis believed; it is exactly what the Marxists believed. And it is, I'm afraid, present even among us, with those who obliquely invoke something called "History" as demanding this or requiring that, in that dangerous phrase that Obama likes to use: "getting on the right side of history."

There is no "right side" of history. There is one damn thing after another, and some things are much more worrisome than other things, and require different kinds of analyses, a shouldering of different kinds of burdens. The historical inevitabilists, even in the weak or etiolated form of that "getting on the right side of history," are always dangerous, and especially so if they allow the tariq-ramadans of this world to keep the peoples of Western Europe from rousing themselves and admitting that over the past few decades they made colossal errors in their immigration policies, and in their domestic policies that have permitted, and even encouraged, Muslim colonies within the West to expand, and to do so at the expense - in every sense - of the indigenous non-Muslims.

But the halting of any growth in, and the peaceful, legal, and orderly reversal of the size of, the Muslim presence in Europe, is exactly what people are coming to understand has to be achieved. And achieved with or without the understanding, help, and support of the benighted American government, at least as presently constituted. (And Tariq Ramadan's suavity, by the way, can turn to hysteria in a New York minute, and I have seen or heard it happen repeatedly. In this respect he is like a great many of the seemingly smoothest Muslim propagandists, who when challenged by the well-prepared falls apart, and starts to rant, in tel qu'en lui-meme fashion.)

Listen carefully to Muslim rhetoric in this country and elsewhere in the West.

It is always not-quite-what-it-seems-to-be: we hear, for example, the phrase "we are here to stay." What does that ambiguous phrase mean? Is that a rousing sign of loyalty to the American political and legal system? Or is it, rather, an aggressive and defiant expression -- we're here, we're not going anywhere, and we will do exactly as we please, in putting relentless pressure on the American legal and political system, on its educational system, on its social understandings, and will never give up, and don't think about trying to stop us -- because "we're here to stay" and the lands that, for now, you possess do not really belong to you, but belong to Allah and to the "best of peoples," that is, the Muslims.
You have only temporary possession, perhaps not even a life estate; the fee simple belongs to us, the Umma, the people who received rightly the message, from the Seal of the Prophets, that Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil), Muhammad. And while some Muslims say no Infidel laws should be obeyed, others, more prudent, think that for now such a demonstration would not be in Islam's best interests. They take a different tack: we will obey your silly manmade Infidel laws insofar as they either do not contradict any part of the Shari'a. And they then add, in a sub-rosa coda meant to be understood only by fellow Muslims: "and only because it makes more sense for now to temporarily do so, in the same spirit of Muhammad treating with the Meccans at Hudaibiyya, that is, insofar as our present relative weakness in the West requires that we temporarily must, in order to bide our time and fortify further our position."

Earlier in July there was a big furor in Great Britain about another planned mosque. There have been so many furors, so much anguish caused by Muslims all over as they conduct their campaign of conquest-from-within, one whose goals the less-prudent or more certain-of-triumph among them have not hidden:

DEFENCE chiefs are fighting plans to build a giant mosque overlooking Britain's top military academy. They claim the new centre poses a security threat to budding Army officers at world-famous Sandhurst.

The building would have a huge dome and two 100ft minarets towering over the soldiers' parade ground.

The minarets will be sited within 400 yards of the Royal Military Academy in Surrey....

Campaign leader Alan Kirkland said: "A lot of people are questioning the size of the minarets which will overlook the whole of the academy."

Local MEP Nigel Farage said: "I am appalled at such an idea. Many fear it could pose a grave security risk."
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Sandhurst has put in an objection on the grounds of security."

Look at the comments by Muslims in any controversy, whether over this or that mosque, whether they are an affront to our sentiments, as with the Ground-Zero mosque, or a real threat to security, as with the mosque-and-minarets proposed to overlook the grounds of Sandhurst. You will find, once the

slyly sweet-reason blague is not accepted at once, quite a different tone, one of triumphalism. A Jihad Watch poster ("dumbeldore's army") brought to my (and others') attention the comments that accompanied this article. "Dumbledore's Army" describes those comments thus:

There are plenty from native non-Muslims who have 'woken up' and are most alarmed and angry; but there are also some truly appalling remarks by obvious Mohammedan spin-doctors and brazen liars...as well as sneering Muslim triumphalists, boasting and taunting.

The most telling of those is this one, by an identified Muslim, from which the sneering triumphalism blasts like heat from a furnace. I'm reproducing it here, because it's a classic of its kind.

"get over it. This is multicultural Britian in case you haven't noticed. Muslims are here to stay. If you don't like it, you should leave."

"There are not enough Mosques as it is.

"There are churches everywhere. We should be able to have just as many places to worship as all the other religions have."

"We have the right to do what ever our religion says"

"and there isn't a single thing you can do about it."

Think about that. It connects to Tariq Ramadan's "it's over. It's over."

It connects to the predictions made by Houari Boumedienne, the ruler of Algeria, back in 1974, at the U.N., when he said that Europe would be conquered not through outright military conquest, but "through the wombs of our women." That triumphalist theme has been repeated by so many Muslim clerics, Muslim political figures, Muslim journalists, in the press, on the radio, on television - see that indispensable site, www.MEMRI.org, for many examples.

And you, who come to this site often, are not surprised. You are not surprised, as perhaps Georgie Ann Geyer was surprised, at the arrogance and contempt shown by that Muslim spokesman on television:

The so-named "spokesman" and "founder" for the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, interviewed on CNN, was far from courteously trying to convince other Americans of his group's good intentions. He was arrogant, smug and derisive of non-Muslim Americans. One came away from his interview feeling that he really wanted to, as the kids rather eloquently say, stick it to us.

Nor are you surprised when you learn, from Geyer's same piece, that the Ahmadiya Muslims - yes, the so-called famously "moderate" Ahmadiya Muslims, who are even considered in Pakistan not to be real Muslims, so unorthodox are their beliefs said to be - held a meeting just outside Washington, D.C.:

Last weekend, for instance, a conference of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was scheduled to be held at the Dulles Expo Center near the capital, in Virginia, with 5,000 set to attend. The theme was: "Are Muslims required to obey non-Muslim governments?"
No, you know. But you have a task. You must make sure that everyone you know also knows what you have come, slowly, and with effort, to understand about the Total Belief-System of Islam, and that those others, in turn, having properly informed themselves, will begin to inform, and alarm, still others. Our government is not helping. Those who think they know better have so far proven that they are far behind many whom they presume to instruct and protect; they are not helping.

So it's up to you. It's all up to you.

And if you do not accept this task, in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in the countries of Western Europe, then -- I'm afraid -- "it's over."

Posted by Hugh on July 25, 2010 1

They will build their islamic hovel with the help and cooperation of the dhimmis and useful idiots in high places, and they will gloat and rub it in our faces on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It no longer matters what we, the people, want in America. We are ignored while those entrusted to represent us systematically destroy our country.

Radical insurgents from CAIR, the muslim brotherhood, and numerous other muslim fifth column revolutionaries in America. It will be a sad and nauseating event.

al-Kidya | July 29, 2010 8:57 PM | Reply

"Let me say this: I am one of many who believed that Islam was a religion of peace before it was hijacked by terrorists." Right!

Islam was once a religion of peace...before it was Islam...before Mohammad and his gang of terrorist thugs destroyed the 360 gods and goddesses in the Ka'aba and slaughtered the Quraysh people. The Quraysh peacefully worshipped the sun, the moon, and the stars.
There were 360 minor gods representing the days of the year. Then along came the terrorists from Medina, forcing their Islamic ideology down their throats or cutting them in the desert. They kept the moon, the Kaaba and their fertility rights but killed, destroyed and erased history in a flash and that's the way it has been for the last 1400 years.
There was peace and then along cam Mohammad.

Nomorestupid dhimmi replied to comment from Susanp | July 29, 2010 9:58 PM | Reply

I totally agree with you. The view that 9/11 is great victory of Islam at the turn of twenty-first century is a view shared by all Muslims of the world despite the sad words and crocodile tears shown by some well-known Muslims.Besides, KOSOVO is yet another victory won by Islam by courtesy of Arch-Dhimmi Clinton-led NATO.

After 9/11,the general over-all condition of economy is greatly affected by many resultant factors among which the ever-rising oil prices included.We are now all suffering a lot of inconveniences at security-check points at various points of travel and economic hardships, all this due to Islam's terrorist activities for more assaults toward eventual conquest of non-Muslim world. Let us remember even UN has become their lobbying effective ground using a lot of oil-money.
One more special thing I noticed after the success of 9/11 attacks is that Muslims, especially Muslim-women living in non-Muslim countries start wearing their head-scarves as if raising the Islamic banner. I am an Asian-American coming from non-Muslim majority country. Before 9/11,Muslims in my native country keep low profile. Now,no more. They grew more arrogant and brazen in their daily dealings with other people. Now, I understand this is a global trend among all of them.Osama Bin Laden and his team hoped to drain out America financially and go bankrupt.The situation all of us,(Jews,Christians,Buddhists and Hindus are in now is a very challenging struggle. On non-Muslim side, we are not prepared, totally ignorant of Islam's goals of global subjugation and its skillful deceptive jihad methods. On their side, they are awash in petro-dollars, very much united and aggressive in their efforts. We need more people like Mr.Robert who is educating and waking us up.

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from Nomorestupid dhimmi | July 29, 2010 11:54 PM | Reply

Nomorestupiddhimmi

you wrote - "One more special thing I noticed after the success of 9/11 attacks is that Muslims, especially Muslim-women living in non-Muslim countries start wearing their head-scarves as if raising the Islamic banner.

"I am an Asian-American coming from non-Muslim majority country.Before 9/11,Muslims in my native country keep low profile. Now, no more. They grew more arrogant and brazen in their daily dealings with other people".

That's very interesting. Because I've just read a book by Australian author Vickie Janson, 'Ideological Jihad', which describes exactly the same thing happening here, in Australia.